The Energizing Nature of Clarity

The truth is that if we look honestly at ourselves as creators, as leaders, and as human beings, the power of what we’re capable of is frightening. And because of this, the courage, power and risk that’s required to live fully feels staggering. And that’s why the payoff is so massive as well.

If we're willing to embrace that risk and courage, and face ourselves directly, we can clearly glimpse our own potential. We can see the deeper path that our hearts strive for, beyond social expectations and materialism.

And with this clarity comes a huge jolt of energy.

In the winter of 2014, I hit a wall. While living in a 6x8 room in West Oakland, I lost my only consulting client, got evicted by my landlord who was moving into my house, and my girlfriend dumped me. All of this happened in the span of 3 weeks. It was brutal. I was literally hungry and broke, living in a neighborhood where I saw someone get held up at gunpoint in broad daylight. Whatever I was doing in my life wasn't working, and I knew I needed to face myself and make a change. So, I did what I knew I could do: Meditate. I entered residential practice in a Zen monastery, and stayed there for a year. And sitting in meditation, I burned through the layers of my own barriers and came into contact with Life. I faced my own mortality. I thought very very hard about livelihood and what it means to earn an ethical living in this world. I understood that even though there were no good answers, if I kept asking the right questions, I'd be ok. This helped me relax deeply.

Exiting the monastery in the spring of 2016, which was nestled high up in the coastal mountains of Big Sur, I spent 10 days in the wilderness, being alone. Walking to the coast. Slowly I emerged into the world. By the time I hit the coast, I had entered into a flow state. I knew exactly what to do. I was like a dragon taking to the water. With the help of some friends and a bit of coincidence ("maybe you manifested it... maybe it's white privilege"), and a couple of phone calls, I lined up job interviews: I met with an IDEO.org recruiter, the head of the IXD department at CCA, the head of HR at Reos Partners, and the CEO of a (now buried) social innovation consultancy based out of the UK. All within a few days of coming out of the wilderness. I was in high demand. I immediately landed a small consulting contract, got a summer job at the farmer's market, and over the course of the next weeks, lined up multiple long-term job offers. I was having the time of my life. At the time I was driving a beat-up 1965 Volvo Amazon and parking it around the corner from where I was interviewing. I didn't want my potential employers to see what I was driving.

By the time summer set in, I had landed a dream job, and the time of transition was over. But I remember that time in my life as one of the most vivid and meaningful. And I often wonder: how exactly did I enter that flow state? What was it about that period of meditation and self-reflection that had such a transformative effect? What was going on with my state of mind that I was able to so effortlessly navigate life and career? Clearly the only thing that had changed was me, so... what changed?

Well, one thing that changed is that during my time in the monastery, I came to understand what I “had to do”. And it was really simple:

Offer to help people and be totally unattached to whether they say yes.

But this understanding was a result of far deeper changes that were happening to my experience of self—my being. I was progressively being broken down, and broken open. And as I broke open, I became more focused and more relaxed. And while there wasn't a singular "aha" moment when that understanding struck, my time in the monastery was essentially a series of events that progressively dawned on me a new way of seeing things: embrace difficulty. Stop avoiding pain.

We usually live in this state of being where we're listening to the words, instead of looking at the brutal reality of the world. We're focused on getting what we think we want, but we're actually deluded by our own desires and our tricky mind.

Our tendency as human beings is to try to get reliable results—we want stability, reliability, predictability. But the world isn't like that, at least not on the surface. It's unpredictable, unstable, and fragile. Everything is temporary and everyone dies. Our world is so beautiful, and so ruinous and perilous. It's full of risk that needs to be mitigated or navigated. And this risk is troubling! Our minds are like machines, trying to make sense of it, trying to make sure we're ok, trying to find something solid. But we're not ok, and it's not solid. We're going to die, guaranteed, and everything is constantly changing. And that simple reality is very hard to look at. So rather than look at the difficulty of the human experience, our minds trick us into seeing safety where there actually isn’t any. This false sense of safety is a proxy. It’s the experience of control, when actually we control very little. We pretend that the world is under control so we can feel ok, when what’s actually happening is that we are under the control of our minds, and of society.

When we take our perceptions at face value and take the society’s standards as our own, we get the fake life that we’ve been sold by our industrial society: Consume and you’ll be happy. Insulate yourself from risk and you’ll be safe. But the cost of this is that we’re not tapped in to the powerful, raw living energy that Life is really made of. Not nice-safe-pretty-life, but gnarley-life-and-death-life. Meaningful-precarious-life. This-is-really-it-life. You-live-for-today-and-it’s-dusk-life. It’s this kind of all-out, fearless face-the-world catastrophe living that is rich with meaning and fulfillment, leaving the placation and “happiness” of consumerist-materialism to the fearful and timid believers. Those towing the Orwellian party line.

And ironically, it’s exactly this promise of "safety" and “happiness” that feeds our unwillingness to face ourselves. And this means that we're never truly fulfilled. And so we end up with the opposite of what we seek: misery and hatred.

The truth is that if we look honestly at ourselves as creators, as leaders, and as human beings, the power of what we’re capable of is frightening. And because of this, the courage, power and risk that’s required to live fully feels staggering. And that’s why the payoff is so massive as well.

If we're willing to embrace that risk and courage, and face ourselves directly, we can clearly glimpse our own potential. We can see the deeper path that our heart strives for, beyond social expectations and materialism.

And this clarity often comes with a huge jolt of energy. It's the energy of creative risk-taking. The energy of the Life we actually want. It's the taste of the real, meaningful living that comes with inner clarity. The you-only-live-once-life that is actually our birthright, but that it seems so few of us actually choose.

But this payoff—this this rush of energy—is not something easy. It's just fuel for facing more of what's challenging. For going deeper into the satisfaction of our work.

It's a "micro-flow-state”.

And this micro-flow-state shows us that if we want to live a fulfilling life every single day, we'll have to burn through fear into clarity every single day.

We have to follow the burst of energy, and listen for that micro-flow-state, without trying to lock down on it and get comfortable.

If we can listen carefully and stay present, then we can enter into a longer state of flow in the world. We can cultivate an energy of persistent creativity that is fundamentally grounded. You become naturally unattached to outcomes.

To be able to access that you also need to just be OK with whatever happens. There's something really powerful about detachment that contributes to this. It's the hallmark of psychological security when you're relaxed and totally not worried about other peoples' shit. You're not worried about what someone else is going to think of you.

It's when we're not clear about our own work and our own path—because we're avoiding our own pain and difficulty—that we really start worrying about what other people think. But when you have creative clarity, you know what your practices are. You know what your imperfections are, and you know that they're ok. And then you can show up with humility and build your confidence and experience in the value that you offer to others.

When your inner clarity is settled, you know exactly what you're after and why, and you know what you have to do to get it. And so you're totally relaxed. The power is yours.

With that state of mind, the world is yours. You're like a dragon taking to the water. You see opportunities everywhere. You see where people are anxious or worried, and you can help put them at ease. You know what you have to do, and you're very happy to know, because now you can get down to the joyous work of working.

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